


Dubai's Lullaby

by hightechzombie



Category: Spec Ops: The Line
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1334539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hightechzombie/pseuds/hightechzombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes I cannot bear watching. Blinding smoke is a mercy. Sand storms that bite my flesh and enshroud my limbs do not feel like punishment anymore. Now it is a merciful respite.</p><p>But when the air is clear and nothing moves, there is no hiding what happened here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dubai's Lullaby

Sometimes I cannot bear watching. Blinding smoke is a mercy. Sand storms that bite my flesh and enshroud my limbs do not feel like punishment anymore. Now it is a merciful respite.

But when the air is clear and nothing moves, there is no hiding what happened here.

Some crimes are too awful. When I have to open my lids, dark thick tears slide down the cheeks. Caressing the dark liquid, I spread it to cover my eyes and while it burns - at last! - I am blind. 

Oh, Allah. Have mercy.

——— 

  
I've never been beautiful. No city is.

Maybe from the distance. Maybe when the night hides the ungainly sides and the moon sugarshines the outstanding ones. Maybe on brilliant mornings when sunlaughter plays on glass windows. 

But look below the skyline and you will find ugliness. Dust on outstretched hands. Breaking, failing lifelines. Some dirt is soaked in misery and some in blood. But prayers rise and give hope to people, and while not all who claim to be God's servants serve him as they should, it is good and it true. 

Yes, there are bruises on my thighs. Sometimes I yelped and cried. At other times I have sung and laughed in joy. Life's carpet is woven from many colours and I have treaded and danced on all of them. Such is life.

Truly! You have to believe me! _I was alive._ I was a breathing, singing, shaking, parlaying, thinking, fighting, musing city and I never stopped! Life throbbed inside my walls, my streets and bowels. I have never known silence.

Change has come when wind brought deserts on its back. The veil thrown over me was made of sand. Just sand, just wind and sand. It was enough to suffocate me.

Now my ugliness is hidden well. A second city is buried here. It is a city of the dead. Their parchment skin is yellow as the sand, their tongues black as sin. Nothing moves except the trickling, shifting and sliding currents of sand. It's rule is absolute and undisputed. 

As for the city which lies above, the city which is _me_... it is the city of the dying.

I have no shame and I have no hope. What keeps me alive are maggots feasting on my body and I've learnt to close my ears in anger, so I do not have to listen to their prayers. You have brought this on yourself, have you not!? Why not run? Why did you build so recklessly? Where was your wisdom and your God?!

We are abandoned. Abandoned by all. Those that come to "save" us should have died on the way here.

There us only damnation for us all.

——— 

  
In my last days I am without flaw. My towers rise like glass flowers, my skin is honey-gold. The sun and sand conspired to make me their bride and light weeps at my beauty. The colours flow into each other and time changes my garment. Night has a preference for ink-blue, small drops of liquid red (fires, screams, burns) and ethereal blue for the unmentioned. Day can't make up its mind and has donned me every possible combination, but mostly hues of desert-orange and sky-blue.

There are so few left to witness my beauty. I long for life and ugliness. 

I have sang for rescue once. Demanded justice. Screamed for revenge. Moaned under torture. Now my throat is hoarse and sand cloggs my lungs. My songs are over. One day they will proclaim my body a grave and sing a mournful lullaby in my broken ribcage.

I have said damnation awaits us, but no. This is not what I believe. I will find peace when Death leaves my gates. I will find peace when Death has collected every sinner and every lamb. The war cannot be won any other way. The sickness cannot be cured any other way.

Having stared from the billboards at battlegrounds, having breathed white smoke and having bathed in blood, my knowledge of Death is almost complete. Just the final lesson left.

Soon I will know. I wait for it to embrace me, wait for the nightmare to stop and I wait for the harmony of the perfectly calm sea. My lids will close, lips seal shut and thought give up its residence. Freedom, yes... but what I - truly and only - want is _peace_.


End file.
